Winter Loon(24)
Lester turned to me and Drew. “You guys know Drew, right? And this is Wes.”
I raised my hand, then felt stupid, like I’d mocked them with the “how” gesture we did when we were kids playing cowboys and Indians, when we would run around a field whooping and tapping our hands to our mouths. I tried to cover and quickly extended it instead. “Ballot,” I said. “Wes Ballot.”
Troy’s hand was big around mine. I could feel the roughness of his palm and watched his branchlike fingers wrap and grip my hand. “Glad to meet you. Wish it was under better circumstances.”
The woman next to Troy touched Drew’s shoulder and put her hand out to me. “Mona. Bull’s stepmother.” As we shook hands, I glanced at the girl. She caught my eye out the corner of hers, then let them sink, like she was reviewing a checklist. Based on the blankness of her expression and the way she blinked to move her gaze, I guessed I did not tick any boxes. I smiled weakly and let Mona’s hand drop when she turned to Drew.
“Drew, how’s your mom?”
“Ah, she’s good. I’ll tell her you asked after her.”
I wish there was a snapshot of that moment, of Drew and his uncle, a couple of hayseed farmers, nervously shifting from one mud-caked foot to the other, of Mona and Troy Hightower clutching each other, concern burrowing into the dark lines of their faces, of Lester Two Kills, puffing up his chest, retelling the story of our drive through the hail, of this girl, who turned out to be Mona’s niece, Jolene Oliver, who had only just come back to live in Loma, and of me, gaped and breathless, struck, not able to stop staring at Jolene, at her one exposed shoulder, brown and polished, at the way her lips moved while she listened to Lester, at the pink nail on her ring finger that traced the toffee-colored crescent moon scar on her cheekbone. I have looked at that picture in my head going on a dozen years. I would like to hold that picture in my hand.
“Forget it, motherfucker,” Drew whispered. “No chance in hell.”
The doctor was out before Lester stopped talking. Bull would be fine. He was lucky the cow had taken the direct hit instead of him. There was plenty of sighing and nervous laughter, some introductions all around, head nods, back slaps, ball caps removed, brows wiped. Drew’s uncle said Bull was welcome to come back when he was ready and that they’d be taking off, him and Drew—“leave you folks to it.” Lester was friends with the Hightowers, with Bull. He would stand at Bull’s bedside, josh with him about the lightning bolt. I was in the gap, nothing to any of them. Lester half rescued me. “Wait around and I can drop you home later,” he offered. I was about to accept when Drew’s uncle countered. “You folks got enough to worry about. We can take him.”
I clamped my mouth shut and nodded a thanks, then stole one more look at this Jolene, trying to catch her eye. She looked at me openly, nothing sly about it, no intention, holding me there before closing her eyes longer than a blink and redirecting her attention to the door.
THE SUN CAME OUT AND a rainbow arced like a doorway, seeing the storm clouds out. The brick buildings and sidewalks, the cars and lawns, everything was saturated with rain and color. Even the air, cool now, was fragrant as tea. I rode in the bed of the Fullertons’ truck, my back against the cab, watching where I’d been disappear down the road. I ripped a hunk of pemmican off with my teeth, figuring I could probably ride for ages like that—carefree, hopeful, a feeling so new I wanted to parade it like an expensive suit. I was glad to be alive, glad to not have been struck by lightning, glad Bull wasn’t dead. Fountains of oily puddle water splashed in our wake and that girl popped into my head, her silence, her drape of black hair, straight and heavy, weighing her head down so it cocked away from the parted side. Would it feel like tassels between my fingers, like some sort of fabric if I could hold a fistful? I rapped on the window of the farm truck. Drew slid the window open.
“This is good,” I said. “I’ll walk from here.”
I hopped over the edge when the truck pulled over. The Fullertons pulled away, and I got the quick sensation that I was a hitcher getting dropped off in a new town, one with some possibility after all.
Kathryn was at the house when I got there. She was leaning against the car, her blue blouse inching up over her belly. Her hair was pulled along the side of her head in a ponytail that ambled over her splotchy shoulder where a sunburn had peeled to an indifferent tan. She put on a fake pout and crossed her arms when she saw me walking up. “Where have you been?” She’d gone out to the farm looking for me after the storm let up, figuring I’d take a ride home from her. When I wasn’t there, she called the house. When I didn’t answer, she came over. She said she’d laid on the horn as usual to get me to come out.
“Ruby or Gip in there?” I asked.
“Well, I didn’t go to the door, Wes, if that’s what you’re asking. But no one came out so I guess not. Their car’s not here, anyway.”
I had Jolene on my mind but what was stirring elsewhere felt less specific. I thought about telling Kathryn it was my birthday, curious what gift she might give me, whether she’d come into the tenants’ house if it was empty. I was looking at her but thinking of this other girl I knew not one lick about, who stared me down without a hint of interest, without cracking a smile, blank and smooth and unreadable. Kathryn’s face registered a bouquet of emotions, each of them suddenly plastic.